All of these samples use TH UD-1 Bass drum and TH MPS Percussion,and the same elements as manic-man and the sample above. Key2 and Sereneklee just used the A and B outputs to control the VCOS. I recorded them last week, with "Sereneklee" being recorded just this Sunday. All of them were run through the Dim C, with delay/reverb. So all of the samples of this post are in stereo, through benefit of the Dim C. No overdubs blah blah.

Edit: I should mention, the Klee voice that was also controlled by the keyboard: I had the trigger output trigger its EG, and the gate output of the keyboard control the EG as well, so holding a key on the keyboard would "open" up the part, and not pressing the key made it more staccato.

i really like sereneklee. the occasional trill-like notes are really neat too.

Sheesh, this is the first thing I've actually recorded (fully) in 2008. I'd been working on nursing a MIDI project through, but finally came to the conclusion last night it was just doomed from birth. I'm going to take a different approach with that. Anyway, I just turned to the Klee, dialed up the sequence in this song, and bada-bim, bada-boom, I finally got something recorded.

I wanted to record something that contained a few of my new toys. One is the SH-201 synth, the purchase of which wifey-poo actually permitted over the otherwise disasterous XMAS vacation of which I shall speak no more. Another toy is Thomas Henry's MPS-100 MIDI to CV design. Though this sequence is driven by an LFO, I unwittingly had the MPS-100 feeding the cutoff of the 2040 filter with a computer driven sequence that I'd been using for timing in the MIDI project. It's not much in this example - just a slight shimmer on the cutoff of the two VCOs that form the bottom of the sequence (it's really only noticeable at the very end). The third thing is something that's just pure synth fire - if anyone has purchased Ian Fritz's 5Pulser and hasn't built it yet, build it. It's a module of many voices. In this sample, it's serving the capacity of the low throaty, croaking voice.

The Klee sequence consists of two voices and a drum. Two VCOs are driven from the B output through the 2040 filter, and the 5Pulser, fed a sawtooth from a third VCO driven from the A+B output through the dual MS-20 clone. Each voice has its own EG (and VCA). I had only enough room to use the CGS tom as the single low drum. The MPS is on a breadboard, for which there was no room at this recording.

The two Klee voices and drum are mixed together and passed into the audio input of the SH-201. For most of the composition, this has no effect, except for the middle, where Woodrow Wilson is giving the surviving Native American's an atta-boy for deciding to play cricket. In that section, I flip in the audio high pass filter to put the kibosh on the lower freq's of the Klee voices and tom. The rest of the voices and pads are supplied by the SH-201.

Prez Woody Wilson (circa 1915), Tom Edison's son, and some preacher from the 1920s provide the public domain rap. I edited mixed those in with Audacity.

This is an example of one purpose I had for the Klee - to provide a sort of inspiration to go in a different direction. It worked this time around.....

I suppose it could be developed further. The spoken material was part of another project I was working on, but it fit pretty well into this. I recorded the basic track with the Klee sequence and the pads together - I'd listened to that outrageous sample of Woodrow Wilson so many times, I pretty much nailed the high pass cut interval without any reference (I didn't put the spoken word in 'til noon today).

I've got a patch set up on the 201 that would fit the description "wild" just about right. That feedback oscillator has got "wild" stamped all over it. It'd be a toss-up between that and a modular patch using the 5Pulser, which can definitely rattle the nads if it's patched to do so...._________________My Site

would be nice to hear a longer version of it, maybe going wild a bit just past the middle

Okee dokee. I added a middle section to it. This section is actually synced to MIDI, which let me add percussion and control two tracks of Klee in time. I use Softstep to create a constantly stepping sequence, then I plug the MIDI into the MTS-100, which generates the gates and triggers to drive the Klee. There are two Klee tracks in this section - both the same sequence as before, but one is handling the EG differently, creating more of a percussive track, while the other makes the two VCOs a bit more agressive.

Percussion and the high sequence is generated by the Roland SC-7 - one track of percussion and the high sequence is controlled by Softstep, while the other track of percussion is controlled by looped MIDI data from Anvil Studio. The other voices are SH-201.

Well it'd be worth it I guess, but let me listen first ... hey I know those samples ... nice solo over it ... and then it reads my mind with something like "very much like it" .. and indeed I do, it'd be worth it _________________Jan

Theodore Edison is Thomas Edison's son. I've got a nice sample of one of the oldest know recordings in existence - Thomas Edison describing an imaginary trip round the world, recorded in 1888. It's good stuff; Edison ends the report with "Goodbye, Edison". I find such things quite fascinating.

Of course, any Robot Chicken fan will know that, not only did Edison invent the phonograph, he also pioneered the art of scratch.....

Ah, poo - that break between Woody Wilson and the middle section was just too jarring. It was a vestige from an earlier, too elaborate version. I deleted it, and put up this last, new version. Couldn't leave both versions, I'm hitting the top o' the limit.

Everything was very lush and full. And I absolutely love the percussion sounds. I'm curious, though. Was that the MPS or analog synth doing the cowbell, or perhaps a Sound Canvas thing? Not that it matters, but I thought it really had punch. I'm working on a thing now with a cowbell that just doesn't cut through in the same way. Good job.

The whole thing started with the Klee sequence heard at the beginning (and throughout) the song. It consists of a voice using two VCOS/Filter/VCA, another voice using one VCO through Ian's 5pulser, and just one CGS tom (the low tom).

When that sequence popped out, I tried a couple of pads with it, and thought it sounded kind of spiffy. I had the output of the modular going through the SH-201, which has an audio input. The SH-201 can treat an audio input as an oscillator source and run it through the normal VCF/VCA/Effects path, but it also has a dedicated LP/HP/BP/Notch filter on a second path that mixes the audio input with the output - that's the path I used. I recorded the sequence along with the pads on a stereo track, and right where Woody Wilson starts congratulating those poor people for towing the line, I flipped in the high pass filter.

I then multi-tracked a few more parts with the SH-201 using the Korg D8 recorder. After that I used Audacity to mix in the audio parts after I'd mixed the D8 tracks down. I posted that original version, and Jan mentioned it would be nice if it were longer (it wasn't very long, it was just sort of a doodle).

So, I thought it would be nice to put in a middle section, with percussion and all that mixed with the original Klee pattern. I have a copy of Softstep (which is a great step sequencer program) and created a repeating sequence mainly to clock the Klee. I ran that sequence through Thomas' MPS-100 MIDI-CV converter, using only the trigger output to clock the Klee. The Klee makes that kind of stuff easy, because you can set the pattern anywhere you like using the pattern switches to match the starting point of other material. Anyway, I recorded two tracks of the Klee - one with abbreviated envelopes to create the "bottom" of the section. The other track was the same sequence that I started out with, with a bit more emphasis on the two VCO voice.

After I laid those two tracks, I used the Soft Step sequence that was driving the Klee to sequence the Sound Canvas "breath" voice over the top. Then I used another sequence from soft step for a percussive track generated by the SC-7. Then I added another track of SC-7 percussion I'd programmed into Anvil Studio. Everything was synced to the MIDI clock of the Korg D8 recorder.

After that, I put in the SH-201 pads that appear on the first part of this new section on one stereo track. Then I put in the first solo voice, which I'd programmed on the SH-201. This voice I ran through the Leslie speaker emulation on the Lexicon MX-200, which lets it wander around the stereo field. Then I added the second, louder solo track which was also the SH-201, which was a stacked pad/monophonic feedback oscillator patch. All of these parts I played by hand. Then, I used the "scene" function of the Korg to automatically bring in the second Klee track when the loud solo started, and then cut off everything but the SC-7 breath voice right before the religous chanting and segue into the original song. All this took some bouncing around (D8 only has 8 tracks), but it wasn't too bad. I learned a lot about the D8 making this song.

I mixed the new section down, then I added Theodore Edison's thoughts on the brain's role (or non-role) in healing and the religous chanting. Now I had this middle section all done, and it turned out to be the easiest part - fitting it into the original version took way more time.

I used Audacity to do this. I went through several "bridge" scenarios, but anything I tried always struck me as incongruous. I finally worked out a small "hit" kind of thing between Woody and the middle section. It consisted of a short, staccato pad "hit", long reverb, and noise. I posted that, then decided I didn't like it. I thought - hey, why bridge it at all? So I used Audacity again to splice the new section right after Woody, and it it fit.

So, the only software processing I did was just to edit the voices in, and fit the pieces of the song together. Audacity was the program I used. I've used Audacity for years now, and, if you don't have it and need a good audio editor/multi-tracker, it's great (and free!). It made it easy to edit parts of the songs together. Usually, I'll look for a zero crossing point to do that. Often, especially with stereo tracks, it's hard to get an edit right at a zero crossing, so, to avoid clicks, one can use the "Fade In" and "Fade Out" functions. You can fade out and fade in in a matter of milliseconds, so the ear doesn't hear the fade, and also doesn't hear the click (because the click has been eliminated with fade in/fade out). It beats splicing tape, which I'm old enough to say I've done - even cassette tape back in the day(!).

The effects were mostly all Lexicon MX-200 - phase shift on the pads at the beginning of the middle section, very slow Leslie on the first solo voice, and general reverb all-around. The SH-201 contributed some reverb/echo, too, on some of its voices.

Quote:

Anybody remember the cowbell in Mountain's "Mississippi Queen"?

Yes indeed - I can't imagine that song without it! The percussion (other than the low CGS tom) in this piece was the Roland Sound Canvas SC-7, controlled through MIDI. The MPS does a mean cowbell. This weekend, I have to confirm some measurments taken by the MPS proto-team, which will bring out the MPS breadboard again. I didn't use it in this song, because my bench is full of other stuff. The CGS tom is just a tiny PCB dangling off the edge of things......

Why, thanks Germ! And - it's actually "MTS-100". That was the MIDI to CV converter Thomas sold during the MAP days. I bought it right when MAP was shutting its doors, which will have been three years ago this April, IIRC. That means its been sitting on my shelf for that long. Gives you an idea of the dimensions of my to-do list.

The MPS is the Thomas Henry drum synth that is currently in proto-test stage. Tom Bugs sent a report of his measurements, which I have to double-check against the breadboarded version I have.

I actually sold off my entire old stock of MPS-100 PCBs to one of the chaps on this here electro-music Forum some while back. Perhaps he will step forward one day and make them available to others. I can't imagine he'll find use for 75 of them...

IMHO, not OT at all - the MPS-100 makes a great MIDI-mate to the Klee. Not only can you use it to translate MIDI clocks, but if you have external range setup, you can use it to control the range (either with MIDI note data, or the bender). You could use it to control re-load one-shot sequences as well with the external load input.

Quote:

I can't imagine he'll find use for 75 of them...

I dunno - I think I'd give it a helluva try...

Still, it would be great to see some MTS-100s pop up out of nowhere....

Here's a fairly ambiguous tune inspired by the yellow journalism that is so prevalent and easily accessible here. After watching around three minutes of satellite news (the most I can stand at any one sitting) I went downstairs, flipped on the Klee, recorder and synths and recorded this right off the bat (no overdubs, yada yada).

The Klee sequence/patch is something I set up last Sunday, the recording that day I thoroughly loused up. So, last night (wednesday) was the next time I actually had it on and went a different direction with it. It's a fairly simple patch - the Klee is driving two oscillators and the DSC2000. The two oscillators are going through my Wilson Triple SVVCF filter, and one of them is also patched into the 2040 filter, along with the DSC2000. The drum-like sounds are just filter resonance. I use the MS-20 filter and Wave Multiplier to flavor one of the oscillators (the one that's not patched to the 2040 filter). Lotsa delay in this one, for syncopantrationizationalizing of the Klee, you understand.

I controlled the Klee sequence with the merge switches (I was just using Gate Bus 1 and Gate Bus 3). It starts out with both merged - gate bus 3 has a "hit" on each step, so merged, it wasn't doing anything. I then unmerged it which causes the sort of popping bass thing to happen. Then a little bit later I unmerge gate bus 1, which allows more notes through the triple res to come through and at the same time blend in the DSC2000. I layer in the DW6000 and SH-201, then at the end merge both busses and the thing ends.

I guess I like it because it just has one of those Klee cadences I don't think I would have come up with using a "normal" sequencer.

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